Common heterozygosity-rich regions across the genomes of commercial and local goat breeds

Heterozygosity-rich regions (HRRs) are still under-characterized in animal genomes. In this work, we detected HRRs in goat samples from 6 breeds, both commercially widespread (ALP, BOE, SAA) and local (BRK, CRE, LNR), specifically looking for HRRs common across breeds. In total, 79 common HRRs have been detected; in particular, a region on chromosome 12 (49.9-51.6 Mbps) was shared by over 35% of the goats in 5 breeds. The imputation of missing SNP genotype data did not have a significant impact on results.